California plans to spend up to $5.6 million in grant money from the U.S. government to retrain mortgage industry workers who lost their jobs in the wake of the subprime lending meltdown, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
The state’s initiative will focus on thousands of former employees of mortgage lenders in California, home to many of the big institutions that offered subprime mortgages to borrowers with patchy credit histories.
California was hit hardest by last year’s job cuts by mortgage lenders, with a net loss of 15,933 mortgage jobs, or 18.5 percent of the nationwide total, according to MortgageDaily.com.
Mortgage lenders including Countrywide Financial Corp (CFC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and New Century Financial Corp (NEWCQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research), both based in Southern California, slashed a total of 86,071 jobs last year, according to MortgageDaily.com.